Once upon a time, there were students who needed to move and teachers who needed to differentiate with new and exciting ways to provide comprehensible input.
Then, WalkTalk!
Watch the video above to see how we wandered the school in search of new and exciting things to chat about. The possibilities are endless, the engagement is limitless, and the language acquisition is on point!
Not sure what to talk about? Here are some ideas, and I’ll add more as time passes:
- Learn the lunch line process
- Thank a favorite teacher
- Take a selfie with the custodian
- Find an interesting locker
- Play Eye-Spy with random junk in your Prof’s car
- Describe the temperature/weather
- Find some shapes in the clouds.
- Find something small and pretty
- Location-based Special Person Interviews from Bryce Hedstrom
- Connect players to their sport fields
- Comment on everything we pass
I think you already have to have some solid classroom management to do this activity. Give the stragglers, or the kids who might not pay extreme attention, a job like door opener, passer-by greeter, picture taker, etc. This was my 30-second departure speech prior to the Walk Talk:
- Half of you are going to take a 15-20 min walk around the school. The other half will be working silently in the library for about 15-20 mins on 1 of 3 options: (1,2,3). Then, we’ll switch.
- We’re not going to speak any English.
- We’re going to stay super close together.
- This is a summative grade, anything you do that contradicts our community rules will affect your total points, and I will immediately send you back to the library.
- If you see the evil eye, that’s not good.
- Let us depart.
Give WalkTalk a try, share your sweet WalkTalk ideas to grow our list, and let me know how it goes!
New WalkTalk!
Visiting tractors to celebrate National FFA Week!
Happy WalkTalking!!!
– Breckley
Hi! This is great! Just curious, while half of your students are doing this awesome walk and talk activity, what exactly did you give the other half of your students to do while in the library? Thanks!!!
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Este video / actividad es increible! Me encanta. Solo voy a los pasillos para hacer gallery walks, line ups , etc pero nunca he hecho una gira de la escuela. Eres tan creativa. Y honrar a los profes favoritos es tan buena idea. Pregunta: De que nivel son los estudiantes del video?? y es la primavera?
I love this and definitely want to do this with my classes. Do you use the clicker for specific vocab words/target structures or expressions/words said in the TL overall? Also, what were the sheets of paper you were walking with in the beginning? I want to know what prompts you used. Thanks so much for sharing this!
Hola!
I use clickers to encourage all possible TL. The papers weren’t part of the walk talk. Half of the students were in the library doing a different assignment to keep the groups small, and some brought the paper with them. I didn’t have any prompts. Some of the next tries at this activity were more organized and connected to our curriculum, but the students still just used whatever language they were capable of using.
Thanks so much for the comments and questions, Marianna!
I absolutely love this activity. I will try it soon. 🙂
me encanta! gracias!
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¡Muy divertido! ¿Qué está escrito en la hoja?
Hey! So sorry for the paper distraction. The papers were from the activity they were doing while waiting their WalkTalk turn in the library. They didn’t need to bring them on the walk, but some did.
Hola! Perdona, pero las hojas no son parte de esta actividad. Son de una actividad que estaban haciendo en la biblioteca antes del WalkTalk, y no las necesitaban durante el camino. Gracias por preguntar!
super fun! what level is this?
Hey! These are IIs. 🙂
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OMG your kids are so fun! ¡Qué chévere esta actividad!
RIGHT?! I’m so lucky to work with them!!!